The art of war in pharaonic Egypt: An analysis of the tactical, logistic, and operational capabilities of the Egyptian army

Abstract

The primary objective of this thesis is to prove that by the New Kingdom the Egyptian army was practicing a rudimentary form of warfare known in current military circles as Operational Art. The acknowledgement of the concept of operational art has only been a recent development being tied closely to the awareness of an intermediate level of war, termed the operational level. It is at this level we find military actions that belong neither to the tactical nor strategic levels. In order to ascertain whether the Egyptians did indeed practice this form of warfare, this study examines the military capabilities of the Egyptian army with particular emphasis on its tactical, logistic, and operational capabilities. Each of these areas is analysed in detail and with particular reference to the three primary strategic theatres where the Egyptians campaigned: Asia; Libya; and Nubia. Overall, it is argued that the Egyptians appreciated the importance of operational level actions in their military encounters and that they themselves were practitioners of operational art especially by the New Kingdom. This would confirm that their military machine and doctrine had reached a high level of sophistication. This would also tend to argue that not only is the concept of an intermediate, operational, level of war a potentially timeless element, but that the temporal origins of operational art itself must be pushed back far earlier than previously thought.